Long time I have wanted to return to venture even slightly in pyrotechnics. A few days ago I bought 1 kg of NO3K (potassium nitrate), and I decided to throw myself into the task. When it came time to mix the components of gunpowder I found the slight difficulty that all those who have published formulas insist that the proportions are by weight, not volume. So I looked for a kitchen scale I have in my stuff, but its range is up to 3 kg, with a minimum of 20 g division, which is too thick for my need for mixing small quantities.

So I had to interrupt the task of milling and sieving NO3K to get to improvise a balance with the sensitivity I need.

Thanks, Bill. Pirotecnia is very laborious if you have not the components finely grinded, and this is my case. To grind 150 g of NO3K I took almost a day using a porcelain mortar. Sulfur is even worst.

I have only 4 almost finished rockets, I have thought to try them tonight, if it does not rain. The chances of failure are very high.

I purchased this scale for US$16.50, advertised as accurate to 0.1 gram. I used it in an experiment to calculate magnetic field strength versus distance. Hope to post the results of my experiment as an Instructable soon. Buying a scale is not as much fun as making one as you did. When I was ten years old we purchased sulfur at the local pharmacy to make gunpowder. We thought the other ingredient was from old electric batteries. Fortunately we were not successful.

I know what you mean but you cant make everything, those mass produced items are needed to make the bespoke stuff.

I have reached the age where I work out if the price of an item is to expensive based on how much hassle it would be to build my own version, how safe mine would be and how wrecked I would be from building it, or more importantly if i could even build the thing in the first place. if its under 10 pounds i don't even think i just buy it.

The other point is why waste the fuel money time and hassle of traipsing round stores only to have some disinterested teenager stare at you blankly and ask "whats that?" or "I'll have to go ask one of the older guys".

I think eBay is great, combined with my smart phone and tablet I can order stuff from anywhere. I feel like Wylie Coyote ordering things from the ACME company, only these days you click a button and then pace back and forward waiting for the post man.

Like "...some disinterested teenager stare at you blankly and ask "whats that?" or "I'll have to go ask one of the older guys...". I get almost every day that response. Not only teenagers, old men/women say it, too.

To get Carbon for gunpowder, the best option is to make a bonfire with pieces of pinewood, wait some minutes and take off the embers. Leave them aside to go out, or just soaking in a bucket of water. In the last case, you must wait 1 or 2 days to they dry. After, grind the pieces (as you can do it) to get a finely ground powder. All this work is easy but a bit boring. My first 4 rockets were fails, but I learned must do some changes.

Some sore of motorized ball mill would help with this, i have played around with this using 12mm ball bearings in a sealed metal can, you can get some very fine powders from this, a small 6-12v motor should be enough to run something and i'm sure the rest could be obtained from scrap.

I dont know where i heard this but, I remember seeing something aout how the carbon and sulfur should be milled together to get the carbon to bond to as much sulfur as possible

Clever idea for a reasonably accurate gram scale. I look forward to you fireworks Ibles. N03K is on the controlled list here in Northern Ireland even sulfur is quite hard to obtain now, we have to make the best of what can be made from match heads, paper caps and sparklers and that limits you to small bangers.

My rockets are in "stand by" due to lack of a mill to process some grams of NO3K, sugar, Carbon and Sulfur. Mortar and pestle make the task too sluggish.

Since Saturday I am making a balls mill, but I am having troubles with the motor, it works well but heats after 3 or 4 minutes. Today I will replace it, at least that is my plan. The proximity of the holidays makes everything a bit more complicated. Here in Argentina the school/college courses finish in december, and consequently the parents and grandparents we are forced to attend many long, boring ceremonies related to our children and grandchildren.

Ah Christmas, keeping grumpy men from the sanctity of their sheds for over 2000 years! lol. whats worse is that you are not allowed to comment on the fact that your related children are tone deaf and have no musical ability yet.

Hopefully the post Christmas left overs will yield some items you can use to build a ball mill.

This is beautiful. Elegant simplicity. I have some flat stainless steel from windshield wiper blades and will try to reproduce your design. I don't have ready access to a syringe but coins are very consistent in weight from one to the next. New ones should serve as calibration weights. Thank you for a wonderful idea.

Once again accept my admiration! A physicist like me would be lost in a world of precision limits, elastic modules, non-linearity, mechanical tolerances, stiffness and staff like this before taking the pliers and do what you did!

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Bio:I am leaving Instructables, soon. I am very upset with the turnaround that has the page to post the manufacture of a dildo. Me llamo Osvaldo Julio Schiavoni I speak Spanish, not English. I use autom...read more »